A few months ago, at 34 weeks pregnant, I was manoeuvring my whale-like frame into the bath when I felt a sudden jolt and lurch inside me. What a big kick, I thought. Three days later, at a routine appointment, I discovered that it was more significant than that though. The baby had, in fact, done a half somersault and now sat in a breech position, its head poking up into my ribs, its bottom nestling in my pelvis.

In the UK, 3% of babies are breech at term (about 12,000 a year), and, not so long ago, most of these were born naturally. Before ultrasound there was no way of confirming whether the head was down - and palpation (feeling the bump) is notoriously inaccurate. If, during labour, a baby's bottom, foot or knee emerged instead of a head, there was nothing a midwife could do except roll up her sleeves (literally and metaphorically) and get on with it.

In 2000, though, a Canadian study, the Term Breech Trial, concluded that caesarean section reduces the risk of infant mortality in breech births. The trial was controversial: on publication, its methodology was called into question and it is still hotly debated. None the less, the policy of "recommended c-section" was adopted immediately in the UK, and since then natural breech birth has become extremely rare.

And there seems every chance it might go from being a rarity to becoming non-existent - after all, the fewer women who have natural breech births, the fewer midwives who have experience, or confidence, in dealing with them. "Most midwives in hospitals have never encountered breech or, if they have, it is very medicalised and straight off to theatre for caesarean," says Valerie Gommon, an independent midwife based in Milton Keynes, who has delivered two breech babies naturally. "I think a lot [of midwives] would like to support women with babies who are breech, but we are not skilled in it since that trial."

I found myself facing a dilemma. My first baby had been born quickly and easily, without drugs, and so, before the breech diagnosis, I had confidently signed up for a home birth. A caesarean was the one thing I had wanted to avoid at all costs, for a number of very good reasons - recovery time is slower, there is more potential for complications, it has implications for future pregnancies (risk of scar rupture, increased risk of problems with the placenta). On the other hand, try as I might, the thought of pushing a baby out bottom first seemed unimaginable.

Because of the rarity of natural breech births, I was also told that if I tried a natural birth in hospital, there would potentially be a lot of interested spectators and that several doctors would have to be present "for the safety of the baby". With all this attendant pressure, I was not sure I would be able to give birth at all.

In January this year, the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology recommended that the Term Breech Trial be withdrawn (the US has also adopted its recommendations), but since then a Dutch study, published in July, has supported some of its findings. Professor James Walker, a spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, says that "there is no simple answer" as to whether caesarean is the safest way to deliver a breech baby: "The evidence suggests that for every 200 women who attempt a vaginal breech delivery, around 100 will end up with a caesarean anyway, 90 will have a good breech delivery, 10 will have a baby delivered in poor condition, of which three will be damaged and one will die."

Faced with this reality, most women, not surprisingly, opt for a caesarean. But the midwifery community is starting to fight back. The weekend after my breech was diagnosed, both Angelina Jolie and Gwen Stefani reportedly had elective caesareans because of breech presentation. On the American Midwifery Today internet site, the forums erupted in indignation. Dozens expressed their disappointment that the Amazonian earth mother Jolie, in particular - who had flown her doctor out to Namibia and planned a natural birth - had chosen not to become a poster girl for vaginal breech birth (her baby was a "footling breech", where the feet emerge first). One blogger speculated that she must have had "an American ob/gyn [obstetrician] who doesn't do breech". "What a shame she didn't contact a midwife or a breech-friendly MD," wrote another.

Mary Cronk, a Chichester-based independent midwife who has 45 years' experience and is widely regarded as the UK's leading authority on vaginal breech birth, delivers around five breech babies naturally each year. She describes breech presentation as "unusual, but not abnormal". If the conditions are right, breech babies come out "more quickly and easily" than a head-first birth, she says. "You need the knowledge and experience to know that the woman is progressing. With a breech, you don't try and be clever." She calls the technique "hands off the breech": if a breech baby is to be born safely, it must be allowed to come out however it wants to. Midwives are trained to "sit on their hands" to resist the urge to pull the baby out once the legs have emerged.

"Most breech-presenting babies are breech by chance, but there is a percentage where there is a good reason why this baby is breech," says Cronk.

For 93% of breech babies, their head-up position is coincidental. In other cases, the baby may have a motor condition that means it has not been able to kick itself round to a head-down position (spina bifida, for example, which would be picked up at a 20-week scan; 38% of babies with spina bifida are breech). The most common misperception about breech babies is that their head will get stuck. While this is a myth, it has some basis in fact: premature babies (born before 37 weeks) risk entrapment because their head may be the largest presenting part. But once a baby is fully-grown, if the bottom and legs can get through, the head will follow.

When Charlotte Burns, 39, from Strawberry Hill, Middlesex, had Lucas, her third child, a foot-first breech baby, in March this year, it was an uncomplicated 90-minute home birth. Her second baby had been born at home so she was confident she could do it, but she faced considerable opposition from the hospital. "The minute they hear breech, they think 'complications'. A caesarean is easier for them because they're empowered. I was under a lot of pressure to reconsider."

Her community midwife had only seen one breech birth, so Burns tracked down a local independent midwife with more experience who agreed to attend the birth as a friend. Compared to Burns's two previous head-first births, it was no different, she says. She wasn't scared of giving birth to a breech baby - more that she would feel forced to go to hospital against her will. "It was really painful, just like any birth, but I don't remember thinking this is much worse than anything else I've done."

Clinical psychologist Benna Waites, 37, from Powys, Wales, gave birth naturally to her first baby Jasper, now aged eight, in hospital. He was a "frank breech" (bottom first). She found the information available at the time so limited and confusing that she later wrote Breech Birth (Free Association Books, £17.95), which takes an objective view of all the evidence - and comes to no conclusion as to the "best" way to give birth to a breech baby. "The whole area of breech is incredibly controversial and unclear. There aren't any hard and fast rules about what's best for your baby. The only known is that caesarean is definitely worse for mothers. That may be a risk that's worth taking - there are unquestionably caesareans when the risk to the mother balances the risk to the baby. We still don't know the best way to bring a breech baby into the world." The worst thing for women, she says, is that they have just a few weeks, at the end of their pregnancy, to make this major decision. "It's so emotive because there are people telling you that if you go one way you are risking the life of your baby."

So what about me? Towards the end of week 37, after repeated attempts to turn the baby using acupuncture and contorting myself into various uncomfortable positions, I awoke in the middle of the night to a huge lurching feeling. The baby was turning back. At a scan the next day to confirm the head was down, I cried with relief. I would not have to make the decision. I still have absolutely no idea what I would have done.